Review: Diary of an Accidental Wallflower by Jennifer McQuiston

Reviewed by Jen

I generally enjoy historicals where the hero is of lower station than the heroine. Often there is some delicious angst involved with the forbidden nature of the romance and the hero’s concerns that he isn’t good enough for his lady love. This story doesn’t exactly take that approach, but I ended up liking it, despite a heroine who was something of an acquired taste.

Clare is a lady bent on a prestigious marriage. She has her eye on the heir of a duke and it seems like her dreams are about to come true when she sprains her ankle and is forced to sit out weeks of the season. Daniel is the young doctor who attends her. He is poor, but he is very smart and has a great bedside manner. He is also hopelessly good looking. Clare does not want to see him as a man, but the more house calls he makes –and the more she sees him interact with her unconventional family, it becomes increasingly difficult to ignore his appeal.

Daniel knows he is handsome but it really just gets in his way more often than not. He wants success practicing medicine, even it means treating spoiled ladies who don’t want to take his medical advice. But Clare stirs something in him. He is pleasantly surprised by the intelligence she hides. He enjoys her wit –and her beauty doesn’t hurt. There’s no pining for her, though. It’s all business. Until one day, it’s not.

I think I would have liked a little pining. It’s one of my favorite parts of the trope. Then again, I can’t say that Clare really presented herself as someone worthy of pining over. In the first part of the book, she comes off as very superficial. –Scratch that– she WAS very superficial. Even her brothers and sisters could see it. And speaking of them, I liked both as secondary characters, and I kind of wished the sister, Lucy, would have been a little more developed.

Anyway, the sexual tension is fairly good, and I liked the way the physical payoff played out. I think things worked out a little neatly for Clare in the end, especially considering just how dire the circumstances were that could have ruined her. Daniel was definitely the better person in the relationship and she was lucky to end up with him, in my opinion. Overall, I liked it fairly well, though it didn’t inspire strong emotions in me.